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Tuesday, 29 March 2016

A Whole Life - Robert Seethaler (translated by Charlotte Collins) - Man Booker International Prize 2016

It has been a very
busy few weeks here at Messenger’s Booker, the reading of the longlist for the inaugural
Man Booker International Prize longlist continues, however the reviews have
been a little thin on the ground as something had to give whilst I juggled
numerous projects. I’m fully geared up to catch up, so over the coming
fortnight expect a review every couple of days as I work my way through the
backlog and reveal my thoughts on each of the works on the 2016 Man Booker
International Prize longlist.

Starting the ball
rolling with the novel “A Whole Life” by Robert Seethaler, translated from the
German by Charlotte Collins, and originally published as ‘Ein ganzes Leben’.
This is a simple tale of Egger, his whole life;

Andreas Egger was considered a cripple, but he was strong. He was a good
worker, didn’t ask for much, barely spoke, and tolerated the heat of the sun in
the fields as well as the biting cold in the forest. He took on any kind of
work and did it reliably and without grumbling. He was as good with a scythe as
he was with a pitchfork. He turned the freshly mown grass, loaded dung onto
carts, and lugged rocks and sheaves of straw from the fields. He crawled over
the soil like a beetle and climbed between rocks to retrieve lost cattle. He
knew in which direction to chop different kinds of wood, how to set the wedge,
hone the saw and sharpen the axe. He seldom went to the inn, and he never
allowed himself more than a meal and a glass of beer or Krauterer. He scarcely
spent a single night in a bed; usually he slept on hay, in attics, in small
side rooms and in barns, alongside the cattle. Sometimes, on mild summer
nights, he would spread a blanket somewhere on a freshly mown meadow, lie on
his back and look up at the starry sky. Then he would think about his future,
which extended infinitely before him, precisely because he expected nothing of
it. And sometimes, if he lay there long enough, he had the impression that
beneath his back the earth was softly rising and falling, and in moments like
these he knew that the mountains breathed.

Opening in 1933, our
novel is set high in the mountains and our protagonist Egger is attempting to
take the local goatherd into town, on his back, as the old man is dying. The natural world being one of the main
players here, as Egger and the goatherd battle the blizzard and the elements to
avoid death’s clutches. From the early pages we understand that the
relationship between this ordinary man, Egger, and the natural world, will be a
main theme throughout. As is the close relationship with death;

‘The Cold Lady…She walks on the mountain and steals through the valley.
She comes when she wants and takes what she needs. She has no face and no
voice. The Cold Lady comes and takes and goes. That’s all. She seizes you as
she passes and takes you with her and sticks you in some hole. And in the last
patch of sky you see before they finally shovel the earth in over you she
reappears and breathes on you. And all that’s left for you then is darkness. And
the cold.’

This work is a simple
tale of a simple man, a whole life, taking the reader through the arrival of
technology in the mountain village, the Second World War, marriage, simple work
on the land or on the cable cars, with the shadow of the all-powerful, all
pervading nature always shimmering on the horizon;

As he walked along the road that ended just behind the village, he had a
strange empty feeling in his stomach. Deep down, he felt sorry for the old
farmer, He thought of the milking stool and wished he could have a chair and a
warm blanket, and at the same time he wished he could have death. He went on
along the narrow path up the mountain, all the way to Pichlersenke. Up here the
ground was soft and the grass short and dark. Drops of water trembled on the
tips of the blades, making the whole meadow glitter as if studded with glass
beads. Egger marvelled at these tiny, trembling drops that clung so tenaciously
to the blades of grass, only to fall at last and seep into the earth or dissolve
to nothing in the air.

In a novel that has
very limited dialogue, this reflective piece takes us from youthful innocence
to aged indifference. Later in the novel Egger attends a funeral and whilst
trudging along in the incessant rain, he catches sight of a child watching
television and laughing. This juxtaposition of comfort, progress and innocence
against battle worn, dreary, weary and aged is one of the many wonderful
elements of a celebratory tale.

Yes, this is a simple
story, but it is a celebration of a simple man, a recognition of the ordinary,
making such extraordinary. Putting major events, such as the Second World War,
into the background, they are just further experiences in Egger’s life, this
work presents ‘a whole life’ of a person on the periphery, but the reflections
and experiences highlight that no soul is insignificant.

A meditative novel, written
in simple language, which pauses on the wonders of the natural world, the
mountains, the sunrise, the moon, the stars, the ice, the rocks, man conquering
the heights with engineering, simple beauty such as the dew on the grass and
always being celebrated, however nature being untamed is always present too, an
example being avalanches.

As a contender for the
Man Booker International Prize? Possibly not, without the experimentation of
language that others display, nor a political edge, nor strong allegory, this book
is one that will possibly slip at the shortlist hurdle, but as a poetic piece
celebrating the ordinary this is a worthwhile addition to any translated
fiction collection.

2 comments:

Just don't see this the same way at all. Does he really gain pleasure from the natural world? Not from the avalanche anyway.It struck me that, objectively, his life was really terrible, and that he was just not bright enough to realise.

Thanks for stopping by and for your comments Grant, I'm not sure I meant Egger obtains pleasure from the natural world, he celebrates such (an example being his late life job taking people on trekking tours) and the book gives the reader a detailed view of the natural world. You are correct in the simplicity of his tale, a simple tale for a simple man?